EUGENE–Four concerts showcasing beginning string musicians and polished band performers as well as wind ensemble, symphonic and elite Green Garter Band players are scheduled this week at the University of Oregon School of Music, 961 E. 18th Ave.

For more information, call the music school weekdays at (541) 346-5678. To confirm concert times and ticket information, call GuardLine from a Touch-Tone phone at 485-2000, ext. 2533, for a 24-hours-a-day taped message of the week’s events.

The Oregon Wind Ensemble and UO Symphonic Band will share a Sunday afternoon concert at 3 p.m. in Beall Concert Hall, 961 E. 18th Ave. Tickets, available at the door, are $5 general admission and $3 for students and senior citizens.

The Oregon Wind Ensemble, led by Robert Ponto and graduate conductors Suzanne Gindin and Bryan Malito, will perform "Ye Bands and Braes O’ Bonnie Doon" by Percy Grainger, "Four Scottish Dances" by Malcolm Arnold, "Niagra Falls" by Michael Daugherty and "Spiel für Blasorchester" by Ernst Toch.

The Symphonic Band, directed by Todd Zimbelman, will play "Moorside March" by Gustav Holst, "Salvation is Created" by Paul Tschenokoff, "The Hounds of Spring" by Alfred Reed, "Be Thou My Vision" by Gillingham and "Praetorius Variations" by Gene Curnow.

The Suzuki Strings Program, under the direction of UO instructor Shelley Rich, will give its fourth annual end-of-the-year concert at 6 p.m. in Beall Concert Hall. Admission is free.

The Suzuki program, part of the School of Music’s Community Music Institute, includes 100 young musicians from elementary through high school, led by trained university students from the School of Music. The concert will feature works by Brandenburg, Bach, Handel, Paganini and Suzuki.

The Green Garter Band, one of the music school’s most popular ensembles, will give a special concert at 8 p.m. in Beall Concert Hall. Tickets, available at the door, are $5 general admission and $3 for students and senior citizens.

The concert will offer a wide range of musical styles, from rhythm and blues to jazz to the best of classic and current rock ’n’ roll, including music by Tower of Power, Earth Wind and Fire, Santana, Sting, Chicago, Huey Lewis, Elvis and others.

Making special appearances will be Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington on jazz piano, the UO vocal group "On the Rocks" and the Oregon Duck mascot.

The Green Garter Band, best known to the community for its performances at many UO basketball games, is one of the music school’s elite performing groups, serving as one of the public relations arms of the UO band program. The 13-piece ensemble, under the direction of Josh Head, plays for conventions, civic clubs, alumni functions, booster organizations and special campus events.

Major works by Samuel Barber and Peter Tchaikovsky will be featured on the University Symphony’s final concert of the year. The program begins at 8 p.m. in Beall Concert Hall. Tickets, available at the door, are $5 general admission and $3 for students and senior citizens.

The orchestra, conducted by Professor Wayne Bennett, will perform Tchaikovsky’s magnificent "Symphony No. 5" and one of Samuel Barber’s seldom-heard master works, "Knoxville, Summer of 1915," featuring soprano soloist Ann Tedards.

Barber was one of a number of American composers whose work was presented frequently in Boston during the period when Serge Koussevitzky was music director of the Boston Symphony. Koussevitzky commissioned works by Barber on several occasions.

"Knoxville: Summer of 1915," the last of the Barber works to have been premiered by Koussevitzky, is arguably the composer’s masterpiece. Barber’s peaceful, poetic, and evocative music, scored for chamber orchestra, is based on a remarkable prose poem by James Agee, depicting a summer evening in the back yard with the whole family assembled, as seen through the eyes of a small child. Both text and music appear deceptively simple–the thoughts of a child methodically cataloguing all the people and things that form part of its life.

Tedards, associate professor of voice at the University of Oregon, has performed as a soloist with the Vienna Symphony, Austrian Radio Orchestra, Stüttgart Philharmonic, Vienna Boys Choir, Washington Bach Consort, Baltimore Choral Arts Society, New York Pro Musica Antiqua, Amor Artis and many other chamber ensembles in the United States and Europe.

Her opera experience includes opera houses in Germany and Austria. Festival appearances include solo performances with the Viennese Schubertiade, Carinthian Summer Festival, Oregon Bach Festival and the Indianapolis Festival of Music. She is the recipient of the Mozart Prize from the Françisco Viñas International Voice Competition in Barcelona, and has recorded for the Musical Heritage Society and Orfeo labels.

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